The ordination of women

This article by Élisabeth Behr-Sigel traces the history of Orthodox reflection on the ordination of women, from the World Council of Churches assembly in New Delhi in 1961 to the early 2000s. Taking a historical and theological approach, the author examines the main stages of this debate: the first positions taken by Orthodox theologians in the 1960s, the Agapia conference (1976), the inter-Orthodox consultation in Rhodes (1988) and its ecumenical extensions. She analyzes the arguments successively advanced against the ordination of women — canonical, typological, pneumatological — and demonstrates their limitations in light of the theological anthropology of the Cappadocian Fathers. The article highlights the diversity of positions within contemporary Orthodoxy and argues, on the basis of an ecclesiology of the common baptismal priesthood, that the question should be treated as an open one, calling for discernment and a deepening of authentic Tradition.